China's home prices generally stable in July

BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's home prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities displayed a generally stable trend in July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- edged up 0.3 percent month on month in July, according to the data.

New home prices in 31 second-tier cities stayed flat month on month, while 35 third-tier cities saw a month-on-month decline of 0.3 percent, the same level as that in June.

Last month, 40 out of the 70 cities saw a month-on-month drop in new home sales prices, the data showed.

Prices of resale homes in the four first-tier cities increased 0.2 percent in July, widening 0.1 percentage points from that in June.

Second-tier and third-tier cities saw their prices of resale homes inch down 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, respectively.